


Institutionalized

by orphan_account



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 02:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6547612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hancock and Nate have been together for years now, and their relationship has only grown stronger. Now it's time for them to finally enter the Institute, and what Nate finds put their relationship in danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Institutionalized

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR FALLOUT 4 SPOILERS
> 
> Don't ask me about the science about how Hancock got into the Institute too please, cause I've got nothing.

Nate didn't often speak about his family, his wife in particular, and Hancock never pestered him about it - although his relationship with his family wasn't the greatest, Hancock couldn't imagine how he would cope if he lost Nate. The last place they expected to find the boy, was the place they were planning on burning to the ground. Yet here they were, Shaun sitting right in front of them and Nate frozen stiff. Hancock didn't realize at first, but the softness that appeared in Nate's face made it clear enough.

"Shaun?" Nate spoke in almost a whisper, as if his throat would crack.

He took a step forward towards the glass screen separating the father and his long lost son, and he looked up to meet Nate's gaze. He had Nate's eyes, Hancock made a note of. The boy was a teenager now, yet the fear that spread across his face when Nate - a burly man covered in spiky body armour and guns on his belt - was a child's fear. 

"Who are you?" Shaun backed up against the wall, and when his eyes met Hancock's he only grew more scared.

Nobody liked seeing ghouls, to many it was like seeing a body with no skin, and it must have been horrifying for this boy who has been living such an underexposed life. Hancock sighed, and walked further into the hallway to leave Nate and his son to their reuniting.

* * *

 

Hancock rarely saw Nate broken, sure he has seen him upset but truly beaten down with no hope - that was new. Though he had never truly addressed it, Hancock knew that Nate feared that he would be too late and Shaun would be gone one way or another yet something he hadn't expected to fear was finding his son old, and already dying with no way of him to stop it. To make the situation worse, his son was in control of exactly what Nate wanted to protecting him from and once again it was like waking up in an entirely new world, having no idea what to do.

"I never got to see him grow up." Nate spoke in whispers once again, his tone so fragile.

Hancock didn't know how to comfort him, especially as he had never seen him so upset, so set on sitting beside him and squeezing his hand in what he hoped was reassurance. They sat like this for a long time, as Nate poured out his feelings like a pipe ready to burst until he crumbled into tears on the bed. Hancock lay beside him until the crying stopped, a hand around Nate's waist, and eventually fell asleep. He was woken up in the middle of the night by Nate thrashing around in his sleep, pain painted across his face as he cried out:

"Wake up! I don't want to be here anymore!"

When the morning came around Nate was already gone, presumably questioning his son about what this all meant and where they would go from here. Hancock took it upon him to get a closer look at the Institute, being one the cleanest places he had ever seen and probably ever would. The place gave him the creeps, to say the least, he had no idea what was a synth and what was a person but what he did know was that he had to get out of there as soon as possible. The clean running water looked almost unreal, and he had to stop himself from reaching down and shoveling it into his mouth, but then again the looks he got for doing that couldn't trump the ones he received simply for looking the way he did. It separate the people from the robots that was for sure, so if there was any plus to this synth uprising was that maybe he wouldn't face a turned upper lip every time he stepped into a room. He spotted Nate on a balcony speaking to Shaun, it looked like an incredibly serious conversation that would go on for quite a while. Long enough for Hancock to sneak out to Goodneighbour to pick up a few chems he assumed, maybe even longer and he could pick up some vodka on the way back too. Nate was probably the only attractive person who could almost keep up with Hancock's chem intake, the only one who didn't have mush for brains that was for sure.

**Author's Note:**

> Well I'm an idiot and posted this chapter instead of saving it as a draft, so sorry about that.


End file.
